Libyan Detainee, Fearing Torture, Fights Transfer Home

Khiria, with mother Rahima, shows a picture of her father, Abdul Ra'ouf Omar Mohammed Abu al-Qassim, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who has been cleared to be sent home to Libya. Qassim is concerned that he will be tortured in Libya and has fought the transfer in U.S. courts.
(Center For Constitutional Rights And Afghanistan Human Rights Organization)

Network News

Abdul Ra'ouf Omar Mohammed Abu al-Qassim has been held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than five years, and he longs to leave it. But the one place the U.S. government is willing to send the "enemy combatant" -- his native Libya is the country Qassim fears most.

Having exhausted all possible legal remedies in U.S. courts -- including a petition to the Supreme Court in April -- Qassim is facing possibly imminent transfer to Libya, a country that the State Department deems a regular abuser and torturer of its captives. Qassim, accused by U.S. officials of being part of a terrorist group that aims to overthrow Libya's leader, expects that returning there means torture and perhaps death.

Qassim is one of the first detainees deemed an "alien enemy combatant" who is publicly fighting his departure from Guantanamo. His attorneys and at least one member of Congress have pleaded with U.S. officials to spare him from transfer to a country known for its human rights transgressions.

Qassim is among about 80 detainees at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release or transfer, and he represents a problem that could recur many times as the United States tries to clear out the facility: sending the men into the custody of nations known to employ torture.

Human rights groups estimate that there are more than a dozen men at Guantanamo slated to go to countries with spotty rights records. Absent court intervention, the men have no choice but to go where the United States sends them.

"It's a huge problem," said Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights who represents Qassim. "It's the number one crisis we're dealing with. A large number of people who are cleared for release are cleared to go to countries where they likely will be tortured. They will be suspect just for the fact that the U.S. has detained them for such a long period of time."

State Department officials said they will not return detainees to their home countries unless the nations guarantee them humane treatment. However, such negotiations occur in private and are hard to enforce.

Numerous detainees at Guantanamo have not been returned to their home countries for fear of torture, but so far no third country has been willing to accept a detainee whom the United States has deemed an enemy combatant, a senior State Department official said.

"We take very seriously our commitments under international law and our policy obligations, and we want to ensure everyone is treated humanely upon return to their home country," the official said. In cases where detainees cannot be sent home, the official said, the United States is seeking other options: "We will continue to pound the pavement and look for countries who will be willing to take them as a humanitarian gesture."

The relationship between Washington and Tripoli has improved dramatically over the past year, and the Bush administration considers Libya a close ally in fighting terrorism. Libya was pulled from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism in June 2006, though it is unclear what assurances the United States has regarding abuse.

Libyan Embassy officials in Washington did not return calls this week. U.S. officials declined to discuss Qassim's case but said several Libyan nationals could be transferred from Guantanamo as soon as next week.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has urged the State Department not to send Qassim to Libya and to consider other options. Qassim, now in his early 40s, is married to an Afghan woman. They have a daughter, entitling him to apply for citizenship in Afghanistan.